


save yourself (i'll save you all the time)

by jadeddiva



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1284940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary:  She feels everything when the potion takes effect – including the ridiculousness of the situation she’s put herself in at the moment.  Speculation about Emma in 3x12</p>
            </blockquote>





	save yourself (i'll save you all the time)

**save yourself (i’ll save you all the time)**

_because I will be your ambulance if you will be my accident_

_and I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast_

_and **I will be your one more time if you will be my one last chance**_

 

Emma can still feel the leather of his jacket beneath her fingers.   She can feel everything – the cool metal of her keys pressing into the palm of her hand, the now-dry tracks left by tears on her cheeks, the silent weight of Hook’s gaze because he can’t stop looking at her and she, she wants to look at him so she does, eyes scanning his face because it feels _so damn good_ to see him again.

(His name is the first thing she says when she wakes from this pleasant dream, and when she says it she says it like a prayer, breathless and desperate.  She’s never been too religious but the smile on his face – the fact that he found her – is a miracle itself.)

She can’t stop touching him either – a hand on his jacket to move him in the right direction or gripping his upper arm as they wait for the crosswalk.  In her head there is another Emma, one who didn’t care about rules and who weaved between the crawling cars so fearless. This one clashes with the one who raised Henry and who taught him to be cautious and safe and to take his time.   That Emma – the mother, not the orphan - wants to take her time with Hook, wants to linger in this haze.  He is her anchor, the only thing holding her down right now as all of the memories threaten to drag her out to sea.

She doesn’t say anything either.  She can’t.  She’s woken up from a dream and the sun is too bright and his eyes are too blue and everything else in her life may very well be a lie but this man beside her is very much not.

Emma keeps it together until her phone vibrates in her pocket.  It is Walsh.

Who she’s been dating for the past few months, and who proposed to her last night.  Who she hasn’t thought of once since her memories returned because she’s been so wrapped up in everything else.

She doesn’t even read the message, shoves the phone back into her pocket as emotions course through her veins.  They’ve reached her apartment building and so Emma presses the elevator button while panic builds in her stomach and anxiety in her chest.  She takes a deep, steadying breath and presses the button again.

“Emma, what’s wrong?” Hook asks and she can’t turn answer him.  He knows her better than she knows herself right now, all wrong memories and right ones jumbled together in her brain, and she presses her lips together as the elevator opens.

“Nothing.” She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.  “Work-related.  I don’t want to deal with it right now.”

The door closes once they’re inside and suddenly she can’t be far enough away from him, pressed against the opposite side of the elevator like he’s a stranger – like he’s a threat.

He takes a step forward, she shrinks back into the corner.   He glances down and away from her (she remembers that look, she knows what it means) and takes a step back.  “Well,” is all he says, and when his eyes finally meet hers, Hook looks so very worried and just slightly broken.

“It’s nothing,” she lies, because it’s everything.  

It’s panic, because she has to deal with this right now.  It’s anxiety, because even if Walsh was kind when she turned him down, she is not sure where they stand now and she does not like the unexpected (at least, she thought she didn’t but she’s not quite sure what thoughts are really truly hers anymore).  It’s also guilt, seeping into her veins because Hooks is here and the last time she saw him, he promised he would never stop thinking about her and it’s obvious that he never did.  She offered him no such promise (how could she?) but he was in the restaurant so he must know about Walsh.  He has to.

She wonders, now, if her immediate gut-reaction to say ‘no’ had anything to do with the curse, with the fact that she didn’t know who she was.  She wonders if anything has been real in this manufactured life, including her relationship, and if her instincts kept her from saying anything other than ‘no’ because she has always known better even if she didn’t know it herself.

(She can still feel the leather of Hook’s jacket beneath her fingertips and she knows how solid and real his arms around her felt.) 

Her head is spinning as she fumbles with the keys and she drops them.  They hit the floor with a clatter and then Hook is there, scooping them up and gently brushing her to the side.   He opens her door easily, and holds it open so that she can enter first.

When the door closes behind him, Emma realizes that they are absolutely alone now.  Henry won’t be home for at least an hour, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to break it to him (if she even is).  She pulls off her jacket, takes the phone out and places it face-down on the kitchen table.  

First things first: she needs to get a lay of the land.

“Do my parents know?” she asks him.  Hook shakes his head.

“They have no idea who they are,” he tells her.  Emma sighs.

“So it’s like the first time all over again.”  There is restless energy inside of her and she can’t sit down so she stands, palms digging into the wood of the kitchen chairs, uncertain of what to do next.  She knows he is watching her – can feel his eyes follow her movement as she rocks the chair back and forth.  There is so much she needs to think about -

“Emma.”

She can’t look up, can’t meet his eyes because even though she has been here and he has been in the Enchanted Forest, he never stopped thinking of her and she has been – she has been –

There is nothing between them, no promise or no understanding, and while the words he said in the Echo Cave ring loud in her ears because it has been mere days since he spoke them (or so it feels) and despite the fact that she’s been gifted with new memories and sent on her way, she can’t help but feel like she’s pulled a dick move.   And that makes no goddamn sense.

“Emma.”

He repeats her name but he’s not moving towards her, and when she does look up, he’s looking at her from across the table with the sad, tired eyes of someone who’s resigned themselves to their fate.  He looked at her like that in the park, he looked at her like that at the restaurant – he looked at her like that in Neverland.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “but there was no other way. I wouldn’t have come to find you if there was another way.”

“Wouldn’t you?” the words slip out of her mouth quickly, before she can catch them, and she immediately regrets it.  She doesn’t know what happened in the year without her just like he doesn’t know what happened in her new life (but he probably has a guess) and she squeezes her eyes shut because she can’t right now.

“No, actually, I wouldn’t.” There is no anger in his tone even though she can still remember the first time he said something similar.  This is no accusation, merely a fact, and in that moment it occurs to Emma that so much exists between them, good and bad and something more.  Guilt and embarrassment and sadness flood her veins.  She feels like she’s messed everything up without realizing it.

She swallows back her panic.  “We’ll need to pack.”

Hook nods.  “Of course.  And I will assist you in any way that I can.”  

“And I need to talk to Walsh.”

There is a small change in his face, almost too small for anyone else to notice but Emma can read him just like he can read her.  He scratches the back of his neck.

“Your gentleman from the restaurant,” he says, his voice low.  She nods and takes a deep breath, trying to push past the anxiety and get her words out and not to tease Hook for calling Walsh ‘her gentleman’. 

“He asked me to marry him.”

Hook’s eyes look up at hers, wide and startled, and he looks away again.  He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and nods.   “And have you decided how to tell him that your parents are fairytale characters?” he asks, sounding detached.

Emma shakes her head.  “I’m not going to tell him because I’m not going to marry him,” she says.  “I turned him down.”

It sounds right when she says it out loud, and she realizes that despite the time and energy she expended in that relationship – despite all the time spent with Walsh – she doesn’t regret ending it.  She doesn’t want him in Storybrooke and the ease of the decision surprises her.

It surprises Hook too, and there is a look of hope that crosses his face so quickly that Emma almost misses it.   

She rushes to fill the silence.

“And Henry doesn’t remember, so we need to figure out what to tell him,” she tells him.  “And we need to leave town tonight.” 

“The sooner we get to Storybrooke, the sooner your parents and their kingdom can be free of this treachery,” Hook says in agreement.  

“Okay.  So we have a plan.” 

“And you have my allegiance.”  Hook is earnest in this declaration as he takes a step forward.  “I will assist you as best I can so that you can save your family.”

“Thank you,” she says.  His faith in him has bolstered her faith in herself in the past, and she thinks that it can help her now.  “That means a lot.”  _You mean a lot,_ she wants to say, but the words are a memory that comes unbidden and which she struggles to piece together.   She smiles, and then shakes her head.  “I totally forgot what being the Savior felt like,” she tells him.  “Never a dull moment, huh?”

“I’ve never known you to be dull, Swan.” Hook smiles at her.  “Perhaps a bit aggressive, but never dull.”

Emma rolls her eyes.  “I am not aggressive.”

Hook raises an eyebrow.  “I never said it was a bad thing, love.”  He rounds the table, leans against the chair beside her.   “I like a lass with spirit.”

His words send a jolt of electricity down the back of her spine and she smiles in spite of herself.  _This_ she remembers – the back and forth banter that kept her focused in Neverland, the banter that lead to a heated kiss in the middle of the jungle, the banter that she’s missed now that she knows she’s spent so much time without it.   When she looks up at him, he’s looking at her with a cheeky grin.

“You should probably see to your gentleman,” he tells her, glancing pointedly at the phone.  “And Emma…” he trails off as he leans closer to her, his mouth near her ear.  “I’m not jealous of his year with you.”

“It wasn’t a whole year,” she tells him quickly.  “Don’t tell me you pined for me while I was gone.”

“I am not ashamed to tell you that I did miss you very much, but if I’m not mistaken, you’re leaving him and coming with me.”  Hook winks at her.  “And I believe I promised you a bit of fun if you chose me.”

“This isn’t a choice,” Emma cautions him, and he shrugs. 

“It isn’t _that_ choice,” he tells her, grin growing wider.  “No matter.  A promise is still a promise.”

Emma laughs, shaking her head, but for the first time since her memories have returned she feels like her old self.  There are still memories to sort through (she will tackle all of her feelings about Henry when she has the luxury of time because there is too much there that she can’t process right now) but the way that Hook looks at her with complete faith and hope and love, and the way that she feels when he looks at her – like she is something marvelous and wonderful – she remembers this very well, and she is so grateful to have it back.

“Thank you for saving me,” she tells him. 

Her words move him and she watches as emotions play across his face.  She would have never suspected as much from the pirate she first met but this man standing in front of her is more complicated than she ever expected and she likes that about him – that he always surprises her, that he is more than meets the eye.  When he finally responses – “You’re welcome, Emma” – she feels the way that her stomach flips at the look in his eyes, the goosebumps on her forearms from the sincerity of his words, and the feel of his leather coat beneath her fingertips when she pulled him towards her and kissed him in Neverland.

She reaches for him again.


End file.
